Downside to microlending in India

[commandlinegamer]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-28/suicides-among-borrowers-in-india-show-how-men-made-a-mess-of-microcredit.html

More than 70 people committed suicide in the state from March 1 to Nov. 19 to escape payments or end the agonies their debt had triggered, according to the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty, a government agency that compiled the data on the microfinance-related deaths from police and press reports.

Sad when a programme designed to help some of the most vulnerable people can be misused or poorly administered.

[Aepervius]

"total of 14,364 suicide cases in the first nine months of 2010" and "More than 70 people committed suicide in the state from March 1 to Nov. 19 to escape payments"

So we have what , 0.5% more suicide, assuming we can compare march to november, to the first nine month (not assured due to seasonal variation but we haven#t other numbers).

Also the article says : "India’s fifth-largest state by area and the site India’s fifth-largest state by area and the site of about a third of the country’s $5.3 billion in microfinance loans as of Sept. 30. as of Sept. 30. " So around 1.7 billion dollar in micro load. That's million upon million of loans. 70 suicide does sound more like noise than anything else.

The program might be misadmnistered or misused, but those numbers don#t seem to warrant such conclusion.